New Hoverboard Design Wins Invention Award

It seems this is the year of the hoverboard, and not the kind with wheels that have a habit of exploding. After missing the deadline set in Back to the Future to have a commercial hoverboard by 2015, mankind is collectively determined. We are going to make this happen, people!

Now the latest incarnation of every teenage boy’s fantasy comes from an intrepid Canadian who recently won a 2016 Invention Award from Popular Science for his homemade hoverboard.

The board uses a series of small rotors similar to a quadcopter with the rider standing on top holding a janky homemade controller.

The inventor, 31-year-old Catalin Alexandru Duru from Montreal and his company Omni Hoverboards, recently broke the Guinness Book of World Record for longest airborne hoverboard ride at 275.9 meters.

Zapata had recently traveled 275 meters, setting the previous record just a few weeks prior, which Duru broke by just a few feet. On April 30 Zapata plans to break the record again by travelling more than two miles on a board that uses jet propulsion.

Both Duru and Zapata plan to unveil new prototypes in the months to come with commercial versions due out in a matter of a few years.